LSU Celebrates Six Rainmakers

BATON ROUGE, La – Six LSU faculty members have been selected as Rainmakers by the LSU Council on Research based on their outstanding scholarship and creative activity within their respective ranks and disciplines. The Rainmaker awards recognize sustained work with high impact, often in alignment with LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda to improve lives in Louisiana and across the world.

LSU’s Rainmakers are researchers at the early, middle, or senior stages of their careers. They have built strong track records in securing external research funding, publishing in high-impact journals, and gaining national as well as international recognition for their work.

“It is exciting to recognize the contributions of early, mid, and late-career scholars in the arts, humanities, social, and behavioral sciences and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” LSU Vice President of Research & Economic Development Robert Twilley said. “The scholarship achieved by these six researchers demonstrate their commitment to LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda. They are all individual catalysts who make our research growth such an important contribution to society.”

The Rainmaker awards are presented in partnership with Campus Federal Credit Union with a one-time cash stipend of $1,000. On Thursday, March 20, this year’s winners will be recognized during a reception at the South Stadium Club at Tiger Stadium.

Meet the LSU Rainmakers: 

Emerging Scholar in Arts, Humanities, Social & Behavioral Science 

Associate Professor Lily Kim’s research centers on mental health and health risk behaviors in marginalized communities, particularly youth, immigrants, and refugees. She designs community- and school-based interventions to address a wide range of behavioral health challenges. Her work is recognized for its community impact, earning her the Champion for Change Award from the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and presented her findings at leading national conferences, contributing to advancements in behavioral health and social equity. 

As principal investigator, Kim leads federally funded studies, including a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-funded responsible parenting project. She also serves as co-investigator on a Gates Foundation grant promoting equity in math education. Her community-based initiatives include partnerships with Afghan and Bhutanese refugees in Ohio and financial empowerment programs for African refugees in Baton Rouge. Kim is a faculty affiliate at Washington University in St. Louis and the University at Buffalo.

“I conduct translational research to create practical solutions that drive real and meaningful change in communities,” Kim said. 

Kim earned her PhD in Social Work at University of Texas at Arlington in 2016. 

 

Emerging Scholar in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics 

Associate Professor Matthew Hiatt studies the hydrology and geomorphology of river deltas and estuaries with a focus on coastal ecosystem design solutions. His research focuses on the flow of water, sediment, and nutrients between rivers and their surrounding wetlands with an emphasis on how these flows change over time. His work informs the ongoing efforts to protect and restore Louisiana’s coast and helps forecast flood risk in the Mississippi River Delta. 

Since joining LSU in 2018, Hiatt has helped win about $32 million in research funding. He is a co-investigator on two of the largest coastal research projects in LSU history: the Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative, or MissDelta, funded by the National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Program, and Developing Engineering practices for Ecosystem Design 

Solutions, or DEEDS, funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Hiatt is currently working on research supported by a 2022 National Science Foundation CAREER award, one of the most prestigious awards to early-career investigators. He was named a Worley Professor of Excellence last year and is a fellow of the LSU Coastal Studies Institute. 

“The complexity of coastal ecosystems is a fascinating puzzle that I’m ceaselessly motivated to piece together,” Hiatt said. “I am honored to work alongside bright and passionate students and faculty to better understand the fundamental processes shaping coastlines, and develop solutions that protect both people and the environment.” 

Hiatt earned his PhD in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at University of Texas at Austin in 2016. 

 

Mid-Career Scholar in Arts, Humanities, Social & Behavioral Science 

Associate Professor Chris Barrett is an internationally recognized scholar on Renaissance studies and ecocriticism, especially how people in early modern times thought about nature, time, and space. She is the author of Early Modern English Literature and the Poetics of Cartographic Anxiety, published by Oxford University Press in 2018, which explores how Renaissance-era maps—a technological novelty at the time—both fascinated and frightened people. Her second monograph, The Forest for the Trees: Eco-Poetics of the Obvious, takes on obviousness as the dominant expressive mode of the twenty-first century, where the view of something as “obvious” often stifles both argument and counterargument.  

On the flip side of obviousness lies, of course, mystery. Barrett and her colleague Michelle Zerba won a Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Research Big Idea grant in 2023 to help launch the Mystery Project Collaborative, an interdisciplinary initiative that brought together scholars from across LSU around the shared theme of mystery as a driver for discovery. Barrett currently serves as acting director of the College of Humanities & Social Sciences’ Humanities Center and as Dean’s Fellow. Externally, she continues as secretary of the International Spenser Society. 

This is Barrett’s second time being recognized as a Rainmaker by LSU. She was honored as an emerging scholar in 2017. 

“It’s an honor to be part of the scholarly ecosystem of LSU, where there are so many brilliant thinkers, all working to figure out how to inhabit this world in human-centered, humane ways,” Barrett said. 

Barrett earned her PhD in English at Harvard University in 2012. 

 

Mid-Career Scholar in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics 

Associate Professor Chao Sun studies how civil infrastructure, including offshore wind farms, buildings, bridges, and power grids, is impacted by coastal hazards, such as hurricane-induced wind, surge, and waves. The goal of his work is to create more resilient infrastructure and coastal communities through better computational methods and innovative structures. For example, Sun has developed integrated computational models to simulate the complex behaviors and failure of structures exposed to combined winds and waves. He has also developed new types of dampers to protect offshore wind turbines and other structures from multi-directional vibrations. In 2023, he received the Early-Career Research Fellowship awarded by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. In 2024, he won the Best Paper Award for sharing his work in the journal Engineering Structures. 

Sun’s research is used by industry, including Gulf Wind Technology to design and build offshore wind farms and Entergy to enhance the structural safety of substations, and by the state of Louisiana, including the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development in how they inspect bridges and roads. 

Sun has won over $3 million in research funding, including a recent $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study floating offshore wind farms.

“I am very honored to receive the 2024 mid-career Rainmaker award,” Sun said. “I enjoy working with so many excellent students and faculty at LSU to develop solutions to harden coastal communities facing pressing natural and man-made hazards.” 

Sun earned his PhD in Civil Engineering at Rice University in 2013. 

 

Senior Scholar in Arts, Humanities, Social & Behavioral Science 

Professor Pamela Pike is an internationally recognized researcher in piano pedagogy. She shares her work with piano scholars as well as piano teachers and practitioners around the world, helping them teach systematically and according to the results of research. Pike is the author of two books, Dynamic Group-Piano Teaching: Transforming Group Theory into Teaching Practice (Routledge, 2017) and The Adult Music Student: Making Music Throughout the Lifespan (Routledge, 2022). Her 36-lecture video series How to Play Piano (The Teaching Company, 2018) is used internationally. 

In addition to serving as the Herndon Spillman Endowed Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Associate Dean of Research, Creative Practice & Community Engagement in the College of Music & Dramatic Arts at LSU, Pike serves on the editorial board for several journals. She is the editor-in-chief of Clavier: Piano Magazine and the co-editor-in-chief of Journal of Piano Research. 

Pike was the first piano pedagogy educator to receive the Yamaha Master Educator Award in 2021. Yamaha is the largest manufacturer of musical instruments in the world. 

“My research focuses on understanding how we can improve student engagement and learning in diverse piano education settings, then bridging the gap between research findings and real-world teaching practice,” Pike said. “My students, colleagues, and the piano lab facilities at LSU enable me to explore my research questions and see the practical application of this work, and to be recognized for pursuing my passion is truly humbling.” 

Pike earned her PhD in Music Education, emphasis in Piano Pedagogy, at University of Oklahoma in 2001. 

 

Senior Scholar in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics 

Professor Louay Mohammad is an endowed professor of civil and environmental engineering and coordinator of the Transportation Faculty Group at LSU. He is a registered professional engineer in Louisiana and Wyoming, a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Transportation Research Board emeritus member, an elected fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE, and an honorary member of the Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists. In 2024, he was honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the ASCE Baton Rouge Chapter. Further, Mohammad is the founding director of the Sustainable and Resilient Pavement Materials and Technologies Center at the Louisiana Transportation Research Center and co-editor-in-chief for the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. 

Mohammad teaches and conducts research in the areas of highway construction materials, pavement engineering, advanced materials characterization and modeling, and infrastructure resiliency and sustainability. He has played a key role in shaping engineering best practices through the development and implementation of new specifications, resulting in longer-lasting pavements. His pioneering work has had both local and national impacts, particularly through the development of test methods for incorporating recycled waste tires into Louisiana roadways while maintaining high performance standards. He has served as principal or co-principal investigator on 73 research projects, securing a total of $65.2 million in grants. 

“Receiving this award is a profound honor,” Mohammad said. “I am deeply grateful to the outstanding undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, visiting scholars, and colleagues I have had the privilege to work with throughout my career. Being surrounded by such talented individuals continues to inspire me. This recognition motivates me to further advocate for excellence in teaching, research, and service within the pavement and civil engineering community.” 

Mohammad earned his PhD in Civil Engineering at LSU in 1989.